Pumpkin Ever After
by TheVertigoMaster
Summary: Thanks to the incompetence of an alcoholic fairy godmother with good intentions, Cinderella Tremaine has become a waitress by day...and a pumpkin by night. As new love buds and begins to blossom, gourd knows how long such a herbaceous secret as hers can remain squashed hidden. Modern AU. Pseudo Los Angeles.
1. You Done Goofed

**A/N: **Hi. I was feeling bored so I made a thing. Hope you like it. Updates won't be on a schedule for this fic since it's just a little whimsical side project; my main focus is still on Winter's Guardian which is a modern, kristelsa, business/apocalypse AU for Frozen. if you're interested, you can check that out from my page also. So now that's out of the way, let's get started!

**Chapter I: You Done Goofed**

The plan was simple. The deal was fair. Turn the pumpkin into a limo, the mice into servants, and the ratchet rags into a beautiful ballgown and accessories, all of which would, come midnight, revert back to their original states.

That was it. _Three_ little things; three _simple_ tasks for a magic-wielding fairy godmother. It wasn't even a permanent spell! It should have been a cakewalk, but of course she ended up tripping and spilling the damn, grand confection all over the place—icing and all—and ruined everything.

At first, it was all going great―the error was not yet revealed—the damned cake was only just lifted off of the table. Cinderella arrived at the party and was greeted with the awe and the attention that she deserved. The event was fantastic, and the whispers that followed the berth of space that was cleared around the blonde beauty were pleasant and secret complements, dotted of course with the occasional lewd thought. That was flattering in its own right though, Cinderella thought, for it was merely a sign giving further evidence to her physical beauty.

She was ecstatic; never had she thought that she could have ascended to such great heights as these. She was both in the presence of the elite and the target of their envy. Everything was warm and swirling within and around her, and the sounds of the orchestra and the chatter of the crowd made her feel more alive than she ever had before, but then she saw _him_.

He stood at the top of the grand staircase, looking out at the crowd, polite yet passive in a manner that seemed absolutely regal. Mr. Charming indeed lived up to his curious name, she remarked internally. As he laid his eyes upon Cinderella, he stopped short, and for her the entire rest of the world froze as well. Scratch and scatter to the winds what she had thought before—_this _was the moment that made her feel more alive than ever before. The noise and the colors of the world around her were now gray, dark, and silent, faded into the amorphous and inconsequential background. She could feel the beating of her heart as it thrummed within her chest and the pulsing of all her blood in all her veins from her neck to her hands to her feet. Charming was the most handsome and captivating man she had ever laid eyes on, and he in turn only had eyes for her...cleavage?

Cinderella frowned; she could almost tell, even at this distance, that his eyes were trained just a tad bit too low to pass for mutual eye contact. No, nonsense―surely she was just overthinking things. She was just being silly, she reassured herself; he was _perfect_, absolutely fucking perfect. He _had _to be, goddammit. She smiled brightly and did her best to smother and suffocate her doubt with a violence of spirit born from years of being too pent up as her stepmother's enslaved maid. The fact that her status as a legal adult didn't change anything about that situation never failed to equally astound and enrage the blonde.

Charming had reached the base of the stairs and would soon reach her hand. His smile was breathtaking and made her clench somewhere deep inside, bringing forth an unfamiliar yet not necessarily uncomfortable sensation that had her trembling slightly. She did her best to ignore it and instead focused all of her attention on trying to remember her name as she smiled back at him and his disarming charisma. _My name is Cinderella. My name is Cinderella. My name is Cinder-_

He was here. He had a hand outstretched for her to shake. "Good evening, ma'am."

"Hi," Cinderella squeaked as she placed her hand in his, surprised and flattered when he bent down to kiss it.

"Welcome to my charity ball. My name is Pierce Charming."

"I'm- My name is Cinderella."

His brows went up as his eyes went down to something, surprised by the strange name...probably. "I see..." He looked back up at her face, "Might I ask you to dance with me?"

"Of course!"

What fools they both were, she for so naively believing that this was the happy ending of some fairytale, and he for not being able to see the brain that worked behind her bright blue eyes and the heart that lay underneath her...assets. They danced together throughout the night, and whenever they weren't, they were chatting and flirting, and before either of the young fools knew it, Cinderella was laying on Charming's bed and it was five minutes to midnight.

_Shit!_

Cinderella scurried from the bed in a hurry with wide eyes and a pained grimace of terror, startling Charming and causing him to pause in the unbuttoning of his shirt as he watched her with a puzzled and wary gaze. "Where are you going?"

"I..." She glanced toward the window. It was her quickest option, and though it was clearly an undesirable route of escape for obvious reasons, she knew she'd never make it outside in time otherwise, not to mention that her limo would have already left by now.

"Is there something wrong?" Charming asked, genuinely concerned.

Cinderella's eyes flicked back to the clock behind him, "I-I was supposed to leave before midnight, and now I only have a few minutes until-"

He sucked in an apologetic breath through clenched teeth, "Oh...sorry about that, but," He too turned to gaze at the clock, "I'm afraid that the time on that is a bit off; you've probably got less than a minute actually."

"What?!" With a panicked huff, Cinderella went about even more hurriedly, now looking for her missing glass shoe with agitated haste.

Charming approached, trying to soothe her but soon after just giving up; he was unable to touch her because she was moving about so quickly. "Don't worry about it too much. I'm sure that I can smooth things over for you if your tardiness causes you any issues."

Cinderella shook her head, both giving up on the shoe and giving the half-dressed man an answer in the negative, "You don't understand, I..." Her eyes again looked toward the window. She sniffed at an odd and familiar smell that suddenly crossed her nose. It almost resembled the scent of a pumpkin. Was it a scented candle? One of those Glade air freshener things? Perhaps it was the rich man's alternative to that sorts of thing?

Charming smiled warmly, and as Cinderella caught sight of it, she stopped again. "I'm sure it will be fine." He blinked suddenly upon remembering something, and then began to dig around in one of his pockets, "Oh, and before you go, I was hoping that I could get your numb-"

The sight before him rendered him utterly speechless and derailed his train of thought, sending it almost a full 90 degrees off-course, down into the demonic, fiery depths of a Grand Canyon-sized fissure that opened straight into the festering, evil bowels of Hell itself. Before him, on the unassuming, plush carpet, amidst a pile of faded, ratty sweats, plain underwear, and scuffed Converse sneakers, lay a fresh, orange, and sizeable gourd—a pumpkin to be precise—right where Cinderella had once been standing.

"What...the fuck?"

The cake, now revealed to be a lie, lay upside-down all over the floor, with the candles rolling along the ground. You done goofed, fairy godmother. You done goofed _real_ bad.

**A/N: **And so it begins, lol. As I said at the top, updates for this fic aren't going to be on a schedule and won't exactly be frequent either, but I promise that I will _not_ abandon it. Plus, I find it hard not to finish things once I start them.

Until next time!


	2. Sounds Like A Personal Problem

**A/N: **Just realized that the first chapter never stated this, but they're in France right now. Yep.

**Chapter II: Sounds Like A Personal Problem**

It was really dark—pitch black to be precise, but to be technical instead, it actually only appeared that way. Cinderella couldn't see anything because she no longer had eyes. She couldn't really freak out about that because she also had no mouth or throat to scream with. She was a pumpkin. An orange, inanimate gourd that was rarely seen outside of a farm, some dish, or in part of a wimpy type of latte on any month other than October—or November if you account for the lazy people.

Charming's demeanor resembled the pumpkin's. He was speechless, and stood dumbly, not moving, with his phone held in his hand as he gazed at the vegetable on the floor where his latest potential conquest had once stood.

Did that really just happen? He wondered. It could have been a clever—though notably quite unorthodox—trick, placing a bunch of random clothes and a pumpkin down as she ran from the room, all in the fleeting moment when he had looked down at his phone to navigate to the contacts page—No,it was ridiculous, and probably impossible...but what else could have actually happened? An adult woman turning into a pumpkin? It was absurd, though its odd occurrence at the exact second of midnight was very curious, but clearly coincidental, of course. _Magic isn't real. It's the sad truth of the world. _Sure it is, Charming. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

— —

He honestly wasn't sure what the hell he planned to do with a random pumpkin in the middle of spring, but the fleeting chance that the orange gourd that he was attempting to furtively hide under his arm might actually be Cinderella prevented him from slipping it into the kitchens as an anonymous present to be made into a future pie. At the same time, he wasn't really sure what he would do later if she were to somehow change back into a person. He wasn't prepared for how heavily the certainty of that revelation would fracture his understanding of reality and the universe, and so, in honor of what may have been Cinderella's last words, he acquired her address from the guest list with the help of a little thing called Google and placed the pumpkin on the doorstep of the house he was led to. Whatever was to become of that pumpkin, he no longer wanted to know.

— —

Whether or not pumpkins can actually sleep is a hard if not impossible question to answer, but upon awakening, Cinderella felt well-rested, though also quite sore. She frowned as she blinked sleepily and looked down at the concrete ground, noticing that it was very cold outside against her bare naked skin.

Bewildered terror overtook her, and she was entirely awake now. Becoming conscious of her nudity, she covered herself as she ran around to the gate that led to the back of the house, grabbed the key from its hiding place under the stone path leading to it, and swiftly unlocking and shutting it behind her before sighing in relief. She then nearly screamed in abhorrent embarrassment at the sight of a form that sat on a bench in the sizeable backyard. Upon realizing that the figure was not only passed out, but was also her clearly incompetent and apparently alchoholic fairy godmother, all of her self-conscious thoughts were eradicated as pure rancor took charge of every fiber of her willowy being.

"Hey!" She yelled, roughly shaking the dozing and snoring old woman when she didn't wake at the sound.

"Zwha? Huh? Hey yourself! What're you..." She shielded her eyes from the virgin morning sun, "Agh fuck, that's bright! What's the spell for that... Flippity, woppity...buh...?"

"Hey! I'm talking to you, Fairy!"

The extremely hungover woman finally noticed the enraged blonde before her, and she smiled dumbly, "Ah! My dear Cinderella! How was the ball?"

"A fucking nightmare, thanks to you!"

"Whaaat? But I got you the dress! The limo! I even gave you a chauffeur for it—bippity, boppity boo and all that don't you remember, dear?"

"Bippity boppity _bullshit's _what it was! Do you have _any _idea where I've been for the past several hours?"

"Well...No."

"Neither do I because I was a fucking _pumpkin_!"

The godmother cringed, "Ooh..."

"Exactly."

"I'm _so _sorry dear, I must have miss-said something with your spell, I had a few beers last night. Might've been 'bippity, boppity, _burp_" or something; magic is very tricky, you see. It requires lots of focus and coordination."

"Then why the fuck were you _drinking_?"

"I wasn't drinking, dear, I was already drunk!"

Cinderella's fists clenched and shook as she closed her eyes, wanting so badly to punch something straight through the moon, "Motherfucking-" She grabbed the fairy by the collar of her dress and dragged her up to look her dead in the eye, "You are going to make this up to me _right now _or so help me..."

"Ok, ok! Calm down, sister—here, why don't you put some clothes on first," she picked up her wand and swirled it around, "beppity, lopsity, loop!" A marble vase that stood next to the bench that she sat on rose into the air gently before suddenly rocketing across the yard to explode against the fence into doves, most of which died on impact with the wooden barrier. "Oops! I must be hungover still. Maybe there's a spell for fixing that-"

"No!" Cinderella smacked the old woman's wand from her hand, "No more magic, please! At least until you're sober."

The fairy spotted an unopened beer can on the ground amidst all the frighteningly large amount of empty ones, "That might be awhile, dear- oh!"

The can burst as it bounced away, kicked by Cinderella's naked foot. "Hey!"

Cinderella's hands moved to her hips defiantly. "No more alcohol for your sorry ass until you fix this!"

"Fix what? The pumpkin every night issue or the damage control for the ball?"

Cinderella's eyes widened in panic, "Wh- d-did you say _every _night?"

"Well yeah, that's what bippity, boppity, burp does—I think—it swaps items in accordance with the cycle of the sun and moon. I told you, magic is tricky. One wrong bit of inflection here or there and the entire thing comes out different. There's a lot of focus needed for it like I said."

"Well, then you'll need to undo the spell! Surely there's a counter incantation or something, right?"

The godmother shrugged, "Well you can't technically _undo _a spell, per se, but you can create a counter spell to nullify the effects, though that always gets messy and a little...glitchy sometimes. Not to mention that I also..." she grimaced, "Uh oh."

"Oh god, what the hell now?"

"To do the counter spell I need to restate the old spell exactly," she muttered.

"So?"

" I burped during your incantation, Cinderella, which probably explains why the whole pumpkin problem starts at midnight...or something. I don't know. In addition to the other components of the counterspell, I'd have to recreate that burp _perfectly, _or else the discrepancy could cause...complications."

"What kind of complications? I doubt they'd be that bad."

"Well...in the best case scenario, you'd only be a pumpkin for a few minutes at some particular point of the night, and in the worst case scenario you'll have some sort of monstrous and entirely different problem that could literally crop up at any time, it might even be years from now. It's either that or you'd just die instantly. The latter's quite likely, actually."

"Fucking hell..." Cinderella croaked and dropped onto the bench, burying her face in her hands as she began to sob pitifully.

"Oh, sweetheart, don't cry...here, take this," she dug around in her purse and pulled out a long, thin strip of official looking paper.

Cinderella looked up and stared at it, confused, "Is this a plane ticket?"

The godmother shrugged, "It's a sort of voucher for one I suppose. One way ticket from here to Los Angeles, California. America."

Cinderella's jaw dropped in awe as she held it with trembling, delicate but calloused fingers. She looked back up at the fairy, "Are you serious?"

She nodded, smiling, "It's the least I could do, dear, and it's not magic either! I may just be an old, immortal, magic-wielding drunk, but I'm still your fairy godmother, and I do care about you, Cinderella. Getting away from this place, especially from your stepmother, would probably be for the best."

Cinderella blushed as she bowed her head and clutched the key to her salvation to her bare chest as she smiled sincerely, "Thank you, truly." She suddenly felt somewhat embarrassed by her previous outburst, "And I'm sorry for getting so angry with you."

"Anger is an emotion, dear, and is a part of being human. On top of that, your predicament is really my fault; you were entirely justified, my dear." She returned Cinderella's sweet smile but lurched with wide eyes before vomiting all over the grass and beer cans, "Ugh. Sorry."

Feeling somewhat disheartened by the undignified interruption and also rather sympathetic towards her good-intentioned fairy godmother, Cinderella merely shook her head and walked away into the house, planning to put on some clothes, pack her few belongings—including her pet rats—and head out for a taxi and the airport before anyone else awoke.


End file.
